


Stargazing Is Just As Much Fun Indoors

by Roshwen



Series: Field trips [5]
Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Because that's what you get if you send an art historian and a mathemagician on a date, Cassie and Jake go on a date, F/M, Fluff, Romance, to see SPACE HISTORY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 01:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12972294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: ‘You’re taking Cass on a date,’ Ezekiel said in a flat voice. ‘To… Frannykuh?’‘Franeker,’ Jake said in nearly accentless Dutch and with a smile that was in no way smug. ‘Yeah. Here, come have a look.’When he pulled up the webpage of the place he had found, Ezekiel let out a low whistle. ‘Hot damn, cowboy. She’s gonna love that.’(Spoiler alert: Cassandra does, in fact, love that).





	Stargazing Is Just As Much Fun Indoors

‘Stone,’ Ezekiel said as he inspected the piece of paper that was taped next to the back door, ‘are you sure you’ve got these coordinates right, mate?’

The piece of paper in question was a list of the backdoor coordinates each of the Librarians was using at the moment or was planning to use in the very near future. It was something they’d come up with after one night of utter chaos, during which Jake had been stuck in Moscow for four hours, Eve and Flynn had been left in one of the seedier neighborhoods in Johannesburg for three and Cassandra kept ending up in New York City while she needed to go to Tokyo, all while Ezekiel was running in and out of the Annex as he pleased thanks to his custom made back door app.

Jake looked up from his laptop to see Ezekiel, who had apparently used his phone to look up the coordinates Jake had put on the list and was now frowning at him in confusion.

‘Pretty sure,’ he said with a grin. ‘Why?’

 ‘Why? Because it’s the middle of nowhere, that’s why,’ Ezekiel said. ‘Look, I think you meant to go to Amsterdam, only you’ve miscalculated by a hundred miles or so. Happens to the best of us. Get me a pen, I’ll change it for you.’

‘Haven’t miscalculated anything,’ Jake said, getting up and grabbing the pen Ezekiel was already brandishing. ‘I’m taking Cassie on a date tomorrow morning.’

‘You’re taking Cass on a date,’ Ezekiel said in a flat voice. ‘To… Frannykuh?’

‘Franeker,’ Jake said in nearly accentless Dutch and with a smile that was in no way smug. ‘Yeah. Here, come have a look.’

When he pulled up the webpage of the place he had found, Ezekiel let out a low whistle. ‘Hot damn, cowboy. She’s gonna love that.’

‘I hope so,’ Jake said, leaning back with a grin, only to snap forward and slam his laptop shut as Cassandra entered the Annex. This of course meant that Cassandra immediately asked them what they were looking at, causing Ezekiel to laugh and ruffle Jake’s hair before he darted out of the Annex, pecking Cassandra’s cheek and whispering something in her ear along the way.

When Ezekiel was gone, Cassandra looked at Jake with a spark of amusement dancing in her eyes. ‘Why did Ezekiel just tell me to bring him back some space brownies?’

‘You’ll see,’ Jake said after he was done rolling his eyes.

\---

Time zones are a bitch, Jake thinks as he drags himself through the Annex door at 6am the next morning. The sight of Cassandra lighting up as she sees him helps a lot to disperse the morning grumpiness though, as does the feeling of wrapping his arms around her slender frame and catching her in a slow good morning kiss. ‘Hey,’ he murmurs, looking down at her with a smile that’s a perfect match for the one shining on her face. ‘You ready to go?’

‘Lead the way,’ Cassandra says, pressing another gentle kiss to his mouth before he can release her to open the back door.

\---

One minute later, they tumble through the door on to a grassy square in what looks like a small, quiet village, basking in wintery sunlight. Cassandra immediately starts scanning the area, looking for clues, but coming up empty if the frown on her face is any indication. ‘Jake, are you sure…’ she starts, biting her lip and trying not to look a little underwhelmed.

‘I’m sure,’ Jake tells her, taking her hand and leading her into what looks like a main street. It’s pretty enough, lined with old buildings on one side and shops on the other, but it’s not until they are crossing a bridge over a narrow canal that Cassandra sees where they’re heading and stops dead.

‘You know where we are yet?’ Jake asks her, taking advantage of the sudden stop to nuzzle a kiss into those soft red curls as he speaks.

‘Why don’t you tell me,’ Cassandra says, staring wide-eyed at the 18th century building in front of them, the white plaque and black lettering of the word _Planetarium_ forming a stark contrast with the red brickwork around it. ‘Because I’ve been to the Natural History museum more times than I can count, and this does not exactly look like the Hayden Planetarium.’

‘That’s because it’s a little older than that,’ Jake says as they walk back a little to sit down on a bench, facing the Planetarium from across the canal. ‘It’s the oldest working planetarium in the world, built in the 18th century by a wool carder who wanted to prove something to his reverend. And because it’s been open to the public ever since, I thought you might want to take a look inside.’

Cassandra would very much like to go inside, but not before she’s grabbed Jake by the lapels of his coat and kissed him so fiercely, he almost doesn’t need a planetarium to see the stars anymore.

The museum part of the planetarium is fascinating in and of itself, although a little small if you are used to the glitter and glamour that is the Hayden Planetarium. Still, the historical instruments Eise Eisinga, wool carder and part time amateur astronomer, used in studying the night sky are pretty cool, as are the digital copies of the notebooks he kept. As they are walking through the exhibition, Jake fills Cassandra in on the reason Mr. Eisinga started building his own private planetarium in the first place, which makes her laugh because Cassandra is a big supporter of proving people wrong with _science._

The story goes like this: in the spring of 1774, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and the moon aligned, which prompted a nearby reverend to proclaim the end of the earth was nigh. He claimed this alignment would cause the earth to come too close to the sun and be burnt to a crisp, even going so far as to publish his theory in the local newspaper, which was a guaranteed recipe for instant widespread panic. Eisinga took one look at the reverend’s theory, called bullshit and proceeded to spent the next seven years of his life building a massive, working model of the then known solar system. Into the ceiling of his living room.

‘Oh my god,’ Cassandra says in a breathless whisper as they finally enter the planetarium proper, and Jake couldn’t agree more. The room is beautiful in itself, a soft symphony of light blue and white, a perfectly preserved example of a well to do eighteenth century wool carder’s living room. Complete with closet-bed and china cabinet.

But overhead… overhead is the ceiling. Decked out in blue and gold, it shows not only the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn orbiting the sun, the zodiac signs in relation to the planets and a calendar showing today’s date, but in the corners and on the walls directly below the ceiling, there is also a dial for the phases of the moon, a dial that shows when the sun and the moon will rise and set that day and an incredibly complex looking panel displaying the stars that would be visible above the town during the night time.

It is absolutely gorgeous. Even though it only shows the planets that were known at the time (as the guide explains to them, Uranus was discovered just two months after Eisinga had finished his masterpiece), it is an amazingly sophisticated piece of work. The fact that it still keeps going after all these years without losing any of its accuracy, is enough to take Jake and Cassandra’s breath away.

Cassandra immediately starts pointing out the most interesting bits, talking a mile a minute about how _this is amazing, Jake, look at this he even made it to scale,_ but Jake is too busy dividing his attention between the stunning sight above his head and the stunning sight right in front of him to take much of it in. Because an excited and happy Cassandra is a sight to behold, her blue eyes wide with wonder and joy, a smile so wide it lights up the entire room and red curls flying as she bounces from one corner of the room to the other.

After her initial excitement has run its course, Cassandra then proceeds to bombard the museum guide with questions about the inner workings of it all. The tour guide, overjoyed that he has finally found a tourist that actually knows a thing or two about space, is only too happy to show them. It turns out the entire display on the ceiling is working exactly like a massive clock, the weights in the cupboards pulling on the cogwheels which in in turn rotate the hoops that contain the planets. If they would just like to follow the guide, he will take them upstairs to see it for themselves.

They would. Once they’ve clambered up a narrow staircase and the two of them are squished together in the low beamed attic, staring at the intricate woodwork in front of them, Jake notices Cassandra’s eyes go a little unfocused, as if she’s looking at something only she can see.

‘Hey,’ he murmurs, nudging her gently. ‘Penny for your thoughts?’

Cassandra comes back to earth with an almost audible _thud._ She shakes her head, smiling a little bashfully before she says: ‘Nah. It’s a nice idea but it wouldn’t work.’

It only takes Jake a few seconds to figure it out. ‘You were trying to work out the schematics, weren’t you?’ he asks with a broad grin. ‘You wanna try building one of these things yourself?’

Cassandra nods, an adorable pink blush creeping up her cheeks. ‘It’s just so pretty, I wanted to see if…’

She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to, because Jake knows his girl.

‘Come here,’ he says, reaching out and drawing her close. Cassandra goes willingly, melting against him as he presses a gentle kiss to her lips.

‘Should’ve known you’d take me on a date to see space history,’ she whispers as they break apart, and for that, Jake just has to draw her close again.

Until now, Jake thought the weirdest place he ever kissed a girl was in a town built by Nicola Tesla. As it turns out, a cramped attic right above the stars is both infinitely weirder, and infinitely better.

 

(Also, before they even get back to the Annex, Jake may already be trying to think of a way to paint Cassandra’s bedroom ceiling without her noticing. It will be tricky, but he has no doubt it will be absolutely worth it.)

**Author's Note:**

> So the [Eise Eisinga Planetarium](http://www.planetarium-friesland.nl/en/) is a real thing that exists, and it's absolutely stunning to visit. Even though it _is_ in the middle of nowhere. Ezekiel isn't wrong about that.


End file.
